Confession
by Cotto
Summary: Based on Justeagle11's video "Buffy/Faith and (Dawn Child): Never Again!" on y o u t u b e, this is designed as a companion story to that video, and takes place a bit afterwords. There's also a good amount of Theology and Philosophy in this one. Please read, review/comment, and enjoy. Buffy's Confession to Fr. Gabriel.


**Confession.**

 _ **By James Carmody.**_

 **Disclaimer:** _Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon, and his alone, any original characters who show up in this are mine, but the characters in the TV show are the property of Joss._

 **Summary:** _Based on Justeagle11's video "Buffy/Faith and (Dawn Child): Never Again!" o e, this is designed as a companion story to that video, and takes place a bit afterwords. There's also a good amount of Theology and Philosophy in this one. Please read, review/comment, and enjoy._

 **Characters:** _Buffy Summers, Dawn Summers, Faith Lehane, Fr. Gabriel, Possibly: First Evil as well._

 **Pairing(s):** _Buffy/Faith, Buffy/Dawn, Faith/Dawn, Buffy/Fr. Gabriel._

 **Story Notes/Author's Notes:** _This tale has perspectives based on certain religious rituals in the faith of the heroine of the TV series, based on some scenes in episodes. Warning: Bad Relationships Abound, but are NOT advocated for! Some of this will be written in the context of the cleric's thoughts,- also: truly disgusting conduct will be alluded to, but that is being confessed, not shown- do not do as the character says she did! Temptation will also likely occur, particularly in this form:_ [text], that means either temptation, prayer, or telepathy _. Please enjoy._

 _I'll try to provide the online address to the video that inspired me to produce this: watch?v=vzgjaCAVLqs._

 _This is also a bit of an AU._

 **Chapter 1.): "What Have I done?"**

 **Beginning Chapter 1 Author's Notes:** _Please tell me what you think of this story. A good part of this chapter will be laying the groundwork for future chapters, so some degree of jumping around will also be occurring, that's to be predictable and understood. I thank you in advance for your patience._

Buffy Summers sat, reading for the third time the note, her abused lover, Faith Lehane, had left her; still in shock about this- she knew their relationship had become profoundly dysfunctional, but never imagined that Faith'll leave her, much less take their child, Dawn. She was still trying to straighten out how she'd messed up.

The note read:

Dear Buffy,

I'm sorry, Honey, but for the safety of Dawnie and myself, we can no longer be together.

No, that's not entirely the situation: I'm sorry I didn't leave sooner- with the beatings and all that you were giving me- I ask you, is that any sort of environment to raise a daughter in?  
I pray that you can learn to treat others right, until then, I've got to leave. Hopefully our friendship can exist again, but as things are right now, it just cannot- not if you beat me in front of our daughter, Dawn.

Love you and sorry;  
Faith L.

This was the final straw: Buffy knew she had to get herself help, she was far too messed up to be safe to be around, so thereby she decided to head to a place she had not been in several months: Church, with the intent to make up for her lifestyle and actions- particularly the battery she had inflicted on Faith- someone she once just about called her wife. Now she realized it had all been a lie, a cruel joke. She felt disgusted with herself, not to mention utterly disgusting! She knew she needed help.

The nineteen year old woman had finally had it: she elected to turn her life around. First step: make right and get her spirit correctly on track! With that in mind, she headed to a place she had mostly avoided: church, avoided ever since marrying another woman, that is. It had been a civil ceremony, not a religious one, and the relationship had been fun initially, but as it had gone along; the result had been utterly disastrous... it had gotten to the point when Buffy was _physically_ beating Faith on a regular basis! Faith had been right: Buffy _needed_ help! Help to get herself right! As Elizabeth Summers walked into the building, intending to go to Confession, she chuckled bitterly to herself _"Buffy the batterer"_ she thought _"now, that sounds incredibly wrong, but is at the same time just as accurate to what was going on between us."_ a tear rolled down her cheek as the blonde realized that she was just _using_ Faith as some kind of sex-object in this perverse joke of a marriage!

At the same time, Fr. Gabriel was waiting in the reconciliation room of his church. Initially he'd disregarded the rumors that Sunnydale had been purposely built on a Hellmouth, but now he had his doubts of those doubts- he'd seen and heard too many horror stories of people's misbehavior to discount those tales any longer- and these were often really _horrible_ stories of misbehavior. As shocking as it sounds: he was delighted that his vow to keep the seal of the confessional secure was made, this protected the dignity of the people going to the sacrament, and it was a real relief to him that this was the case- he wanted so desperately to forget the stories he heard; forget them _forever_ , that is!

Elizabeth Summers walked silently with shame to the Holy Water Font, dipped her hand in, just the fingertips, and proceeded to perform the traditional blessing of the Sign of the Cross on herself, in an effort to get herself into the right mindset. In another level of reality, the First was in panic mode: it did _not_ want her to get free, it _liked_ twisting her personality into that of a gay abuser, actually a batterer who was regularly beating her wife, it loved that particular lifestyle immensely, and never wanted her to break free of her evil conduct! However, despite its boasting, its power was limited, especially in places that are sacred, and in the presence of any consecrated object or person! As a result, this evil spirit had to be careful, else-wise it would wind up losing far more than it could afford: its Enemy's office was the exact place where its prey was located in, and she was out to make up for her evil conduct: something even worse in its eyes!

In fact, to some degree as soon as she dipped her hand in the blessed water, it could feel its power over her decreasing. That had been happening ever since she had made up her mind to make up for her evil conduct. What was far more unpleasant about this was that for the bad angel, however, as its slave was beginning to break free of slavery to it! _"This really bites!"_ The First Evil thought to itself _"I so liked owning Elizabeth Summers... well, the rules of the game work both ways: and I can still get her back into my service later on, all it takes is working this out right., and then she'll be mine for all the rest of eternity. It just takes time and effort as well as proper planning."_ the wicked spirit went on considering how to return Elizabeth {Buffy} Anne Summers to slavery to itself, and forwent this particular situation till it could be resumed.

Fr. Gabriel _thought_ he'd heard it all; however, he was in for a doozy of one this time, when a young blonde woman with her hair in a loose pony-tail walked into his reconciliation room and sat down. She looked to be about nineteen or twenty-something, maybe early twenties at oldest. If he was asked to describe her outer appearance, he'd say that (if he could without violating his vow, that is) she wore a brilliant white dress that went down to her knees, actually just above them, her feet were in sensible shoes, and she looked kind of small, a bit petite, actually, but physically strong. He actually had no idea just how physically strong she really was. She also had glued on nails attacked to her fingernails, not the extra-long kind, but just a bit beyond the length of regular fingernails that are neatly trimmed. They looked nicely filed after being clipped. She also had what looked like stud earrings on her ears, but the look on her face was one of fear. He knew this look on her face, he'd seen it scores of times on others before, the fear that you'd be turned away from making up to God for your violations of His laws.

She kind of kept her head down, but she was bold, this one, coming into the room to talk directly to him instead of hiding behind the screen. The humility of her keeping her head down combined with the interior courage in her to look him right in the face if the need presented itself was reassuring to the priest. She came in quietly, sat down in the chair across from him, put her hands in her lap, head down, and legs crossed at the ankles, and waited.

A rough transcription of this sacrament went as follows:

Buffy Summers blessed herself again, and began by saying "Bless me Father... I've sinned. It's been years since my last confession."

"Go on, my child." he responded, not wanting her to bolt, but to make up. He knew he was technically a judge in this matter, but his duty was to provide a merciful sentence and make sure it was just too- not to be what's called a hanging judge at all, but to act "In persona Christi" as the term goes.

Buffy really hung her head at this point "I've... gotten married to a woman, and we adopted a child." she paused.

He now knew what was going on, to some degree, but he had no idea the level of the abuse going on in this household he was being told about. She was into other women. Her actions were wrong, but not her orientation, and she needed, above all, mercy right now. He was angry about this, but knew he had to lay his rage aside to serve his Boss.

Taking a deep breath, Buffy continued "I'd come home after drinking with the guys, find out she hadn't done her chores completely, and I'd beat her" Buffy paused again "physically."

"You battered her?" he asked, trying to get the facts straight.

"She'd send our daughter up to her room, to protect her from these images, the trauma it'd cause to her mind, and I'd physically hit her, smash things with her body... I'd beat her, Father." she went on, paused, "Then, one day, I got worse than ever before" Buffy explained "after beating her for some minor offense, I hauled her into the living room by her hair, laid her down on the floor, sat down beside her, picked up her hand, and shoved it, by force, into the top of my skirt. I forced her to touch me, Father. Next, while I held her left hand in the waistband of my skirt with my right hand, I took my left hand and forced it into the waistband of her leather pants. I forced us both to touch eachother! Please, Father, _don't_ tell me that I was right to do this!" She begged him, she knew she'd done wrong.

Fr. Gabriel was both disgusted and relieved by different parts of what he'd heard. "No, my child, it's not right, you raped God's daughter... you were wrong to do that. What you did most definitely _wasn't_ right!" he paused "Is there anything else you wish to add?" he asked her

He could clearly tell that she was sorry for what she had done, for one reason or another, but what the reason was he didn't know for certain. He knew just as well at least that this sorrow was going to make it unlikely for the sin to be committed again, but he also knew that it wasn't enough. This woman, he knew now, was a rapist, from what she was telling him, and sexual sins have the highest degree of addictiveness of any sins imaginable. The reason was that humans are designed to reproduce by physical mating, and this was an abuse of this ability- if you can corrupt such a gift, the results are truly terrible on the person who's got it corrupted in their life!

"We stayed like that for most of the night, Faith crying as I belittled her, telling her that she's so lazy she's only good for sex, that she's worthless, that her foolishness and stupidity earn her this 'gift' I was 'giving' her." Buffy explained to Fr. Gabriel.

"Doesn't sound like love to me at all." Fr. Gabriel told her, shaking his head "It sounds like something worse than hatred and worse than lust... it sounds like you were _using_ her. How many times did this happen?" he asked her, horrified beyond his previous level of horror about people's behavior in this town particularly. "She's God's daughter, just as you are, and that girl you two adopted- same deal: Yahweh's daughters, all of you." he said, to make something clear to her: dignity, the dignity of what they were made to be, violated by this horrible behavior that had gone on... then, knowing what kind of addictiveness this kind of behavior would have: owning someone in that kind of way, he asked her another question "What drove you to quit this behavior and come to make up?" he asked out of sheer business curiosity.

"As you may have guessed, Faith is the name of the woman I 'married', this abuse was occurring almost every evening for about a month, and the thing that shook me up to the point where I left this behavior and turned to the Church was that she left me and took our daughter." Buffy explained, ashamed of herself for this.

"In which case I'm glad she _did_ leave, that caused at least one of His daughters to come back. Here's what you have to do for your penance: first off: Leave that Lifestyle, completely! Second: change your ways,,, I've seen you around town, fighting monsters; that's fine, but the sexual activities _must_ be terminated, _completely_! Third: Remember: Every human you see is God's child- _**never use**_ _ **anyone,**_ _ **in that way, ever again!**_ Forth: you are to pray a decade of the Rosary in reparation for both your sins in this manner and for those of everyone who's fallen away from the faith- do you understand?" he asked her. He knew he had to render a just judgment for her sins- the main part of the penance was the decade: 10 Hail Mary's, One Our Father, one Glory Be, and one Oh, My Jesus. What he said next to her made this appeal to her more "If this works, you'll be snatching souls out of the First's hands- yes, I am well aware of your role here in this town" he said with a friendly twinkle in his eye "as well as quite well aware of who your primary enemy is, he was your master while you were in this relationship, and got quite a bit of fun out of watching you beat your" and here he used air-quotes to signify his disbelief that this could ever happen "wife, but regardless of whatever deals you two had entered into, she's still human, and deserves the respect due to a child of God. You'll be helping to redeem her, hopefully you two can be good friends in Paradise at the end of time." That idea made her happy: being friends with her. Buffy promised to fulfill the penance he'd told her to do, she quoted back to him the penance terms, just to verify that she had them accurate, and then, with a bit of a skip in her step, walked out of the Confessional, and headed into the church to perform her penance. She also had been told she had to, for the sake of those prone to the same kind of misbehavior, make up to society for her crime of domestic assault and battery.

 _To Be Continued..._

 **End Chapter 1 Author's Notes:** _I am not a cleric, I am not a priest, this may be the reason for the somewhat weird penance for Buffy Summers utterly atrocious behavior of what amounts to brutal lesbian domestic rape- a very serious violation of natural law, on just about all accounts of natural law that can be involved in it. Honestly, it's a miracle that she's able to decide to repent in the first place: she'd be so addicted to sin that it'd be impossible but for the love of God bringing her into penance for her misbehavior!_

 _That's part of what is meant by "slavery to sin", a complete and utter addiction to wicked misbehavior!_

 _As I am not a priest, I do not know the rules of how much of a penance to make for any sin, nor do I have that gift to discern the amount. Should any Priest in the Catholic faith tell me something, be it online or in person as a technical correction of my storyline's facts, that will be taken as a educational experience and welcomed, so long as it makes sense, and that doesn't mean that I want it to, that means if it actually_ ** _does_** _make sense, according to Church law. This story is as best as I know at this time about behavior and Church regulations about the kind of penance._

 _I have been to Confession many times in my life, too many to count, but I never could be on the side of the Cleric as things now stand, so his words are guesswork._

 _The next few chapters may well deal with Faith and Dawn's respective perspectives. Please tell me what you think._


End file.
